Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (The Stoic Virtues Series)

by Ryan Holiday

When you encounter real courage in this world, you will feel its intensity before you see it. It will not manifest in a caricature of the thrill-seeker or the daredevil. The courageous do not, as we have said, run around half-cocked. They are not stupid and therefore do not actively seek conflict. Even in their daring, they will be subdued unless you happen to find them in the midst of one of those rare decisive moments where they must call upon their courage. And still, in action they will be deliberate and calm, methodical and measured.

audacity, boldness, invariably assumed a peculiar complexion. To act boldly did not, in his case, mean to act on the heat of impulse, but to lay his plans craftily, to do the dangerous thing with the utmost caution and after more careful consideration. His most venturesome schemes were, like good steel, forged in fire and then hardened in ice.

not the hot-headed but the cold-blooded.

Agency Is Taken, Not Given

Each one of us has within our hands the power to end our own captivity. Each one of us has the means to assert our agency. It begins with a choice, but it is ensured by action. Few men of accomplishment, da Vinci noted, got there by things happening to them. No, he said, they are what has happened.

So which will you be? The immovable object or the unstoppable force? The leader or the follower? The passive acceptance or the active resistance?

“Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence,” he said, “I would advise violence.”

Sometimes physical courage is required to protect moral courage. There will be moments when we are at risk—or someone we love is at risk. Kind words will not cut it. Poise will not protect us. What will be called for is intensity, aggression, a demonstration of force. In these moments, we cannot shy away. We cannot shrink. We cannot be bullied. We cannot do nothing.

If courage—moral and physical—is the act of putting your ass on the line, then the definition of the heroic is very simple: It is risking oneself for someone else. It’s putting it on the line not just for your own benefit but for the benefit of someone, something, some larger cause.

we must triumph over fear, we must cultivate courage in daily life, and we must be ready to seize the opportunities life presents us—however big or small.

Gates of Fire, the epic historical novel of this battle by Steven Pressfield,

Remember: Between mountains lies the valley. You may have tumbled down from your former heights. You may have been thrown down. Or simply lost your way. But now you find yourself here. It is a low point. So? A long desert. A desolate valley. Either way, you’ll need to cross it. You’ll need patience and endurance and most of all love. You can’t let this period make you bitter. You have to make sure it makes you better. Because people are counting on you. Don’t give up hope. Don’t give up on them. They know not what they do. You, on the other hand, do know. This desert, this wilderness was given to you to cross. It’s part of your journey. To struggle makes the destination glorious. And heroic.

No Time for Hesitating

We Make Our Own Luck

Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever is going on. There’s more you can do. A hero is a person who does what needs to be done, not just for themselves but for others. That is, a hero makes their own luck—events don’t just happen to them. Shakespeare said that we meet the time as it seeks us. But we have to seek the time and the moments too. We can’t be passive. We can’t wait. We must reach out. As Marcus Aurelius writes, “True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.” Our hands are never as tied as we think. There is always something a hero can do, always someone they can help.

Curse the darkness or light a candle? Bemoan the calm seas or build a motor? We will our purpose into existence. We choose to be heroes. And if we don’t, it’s on us.

Inspire Through Fearlessness

nothing will impress them like a show of absolute fearlessness.

never betrayed a hint of fear or doubt.

completely confident.

plunge ahead with poise.

The chief can’t take up the rear, they lead the troops into battle.

You must care about the people in your care. You must put them first. You must show them with your actions. Call them to something higher.

We can’t be afraid or we won’t be able to do what needs to be done. But also, by this fearlessness—willingness to represent the cause, in the flesh, against all dangers—we show everyone else that they’ll be okay as well. The leader risks themselves for us. They step to the front. They make their courage contagious.

What Are You Willing to Pay?

You have to care enough to draw the line somewhere, and the failure to do this is ultimately far uglier than most of the excesses of history.

“We should also be prepared, when reason, self-respect, and duty demand the sacrifice, to deliver it even to the flames.”

All businesses, like people, have competing duties.

Taking the hit for someone, something else. That’s what heroes do. A coward thinks of themselves. Courage forces us to ask, “If not now, when?” and “If not me, then who?” It pushes us to be bold. It also asks: What if everyone was selfish? What would things look like? It encourages us to gamble on ourselves, to carve out an unconventional path. But we can’t forget the other side of the rabbi Hillel’s question is equally important. “If I am only for me,” he asks, “who am I?” We resist the creeping pull of nihilism, we assert our agency over chance and fate, but why? It cannot be merely for our own survival. The poet Maya Angelou once said that courage is about standing up for yourself and for others. That’s what we’re doing here. In fact, that is why we are here.

The greater the sacrifice, the greater the glory.

“Character,” de Gaulle reflected at the end of his life, “is above all the ability to disregard insults or abandonment by one’s own people. One must be willing to lose everything. There is no such thing as half a risk.”

“Because my father was a slave,” he said, “and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay right here and have a part of it [. . .] And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear?”

Sometimes we are called to go. But sometimes destiny demands that we stay—that we go back willingly into the jaws, that we stay and fight.

Silence Is Violence

You Must Burn the White Flag

Si succiderit, de genu pugnat. If his legs fail, still he fights on his knees. Still they rise, even if it’s not literally possible.

Character is fate. It meant that what you believed determined what you would do. The four virtues were about instilling character—good character—so that at the critical point, a person could act on instinct.

a superlative paid for over the course of a life of courageous decisions.

virtue is two parts. The study of truth, followed by conduct. If there is a third part, he said, it would be admonishment and reminders—the process of reviewing, reflecting, and creating rules based on our experiences. Of course, of all the parts, conduct is the most important.

But it is also by failing—and looking in the mirror afterward—that we are able to grow and learn, and hopefully be better next time.

In the midst of chaos and corruption, it can be hard to hear the call to courage. Sometimes you can only understand the perils of hesitation,